I hate that my relationship with NFL Football is in jeopardy

I’ve been in love for 33 years now. When I met her it was love at first sight. I remember it like it was yesterday. Picture this… Late fall…January ’78…. I see it for the very first time. It took my breath away; a beautiful blue star resting so effortlessly on a grey solid backdrop. The landscape was green, the markers white, the frame was rectangular elegance. I felt anxiety and peace all at once. I was mesmerized.

My love grew. What was once seasonal love became year round. Some may call it an obsession but it feels more like passion to me. In spring we draft plans, and in summer we camp. We have date night every week in the fall. In winter we plan super celebration:
Everything in its respective place, until its not.

The NFL has experienced labor pains. Most notably in’82 and ’87 so why am I feeling so out of sorts right now. How is this different? I guess because in those years it was clear who needed to apologize. The players needed free agency, and the owners needed a salary cap. I understood both, and both have made the game a much better product.

The labor strife in 2011 is much more murky. The owners opted out of a contract that paid the players 60% of revenue. The owners are asking for more of the pie, and he players are hell bent on never giving back a crumb. Stalemate.

In my opinion the real problem is a philosophical one. The owners know they don’t have a product without the players so in peacetime they allow the players to THINK that they are PARTNERS. The players have got so embolden by this that they actually THINK they are PARTNERS. Until this philosophical difference gets settled my love will always be at risk.

Let’s be clear. Owners and Players are not partners and will never be partners. If a fan goes into Texas Stadium and hurts him/herself then he/she will sue the Dallas Cowboys, the NFL, and Jerry Jones for damages. Tony Romo, and DeMarcus Ware will not be listed in the suit. They are not partners. They are employees. Also if players and owners were partner’s players would have a legal obligation to see the books. The fact that they have to ask to see the books answers the question emphatically. THEY ARE NOT PARTNERS!

I would never share the books with an employee. Why should NFL owners? I know the player rationale is this isn’t an ordinary job. They risk life and limb every time they strap it on, but they also get paid inordinate sums of money to do so. And in deference to Adrian Peterson, Rashard Mendenhall, and any other player that feels like the NFL is transporting them back to pre Jim Crow Slavery Time, players have options. They aren’t chattel.

In my lifetime the players have gone from making 35% of the revenue to 60%. Where does it stop? The number has to stop at some point doesn’t it? The owners liked it at 55%. The players like it at 60%. Let’s make it 57.5% and move on. Keep in mind this should only be Football Revenue not total revenue. Players should get 57.5% of the TV Deal, Gate, and Merchandise only. The owners paid hundreds of millions for the clubs. They should be able to sell naming rights, sponsorships, and create joint ventures without having to share that with their employee.

I wish the owners and players had signed a pre-nup. Their acrimony has put me in a precarious situation. My love is in jeopardy. The combine didn’t feel right. Free agency hasn’t started. The draft has been cheapened, and I know not what tomorrow brings. The thought of no NFL in the fall disappoints me greatly. Normally I’d just start dating someone else, and move on. On to the next one, but this is different, this is the NFL. I’ve dated the others, and they pale in comparison. Please don’t take my love away!
I HEART THE NFL!

I hate that society wants all of us in a Box

Society is a joke. It’s only purpose it to drain everyone of his or her eternal soul. Society seeks to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator. Individuality and original thought are for the most part frowned upon. Any new idea or thought is considered evil and must be vanquished, ridiculed, mocked, until it is so marginalized that people will laugh at it. If someone just suggests doing something a little bit differently, if they mention the road less traveled as a viable option they will immediately be dismissed. I’m not talking about technological advances or things of that nature. We will always be on the cutting edge of those type of things, because creating new creature comforts will always be high on mans priority list. I’m just talking about original thought.

What I’m referring to are the monuments of human thinking. These ideas that are so built up. They are so large and ominous that people dare not oppose them, these pristine chapels that can’t be touched or disputed. You know the notion that says marriage is best for everyone, or that honesty is the best policy, don’t hide things from your girlfriend, or can't win them all.

These fecocteh ideas are so unoriginal. Relationships have been around forever. And in all of this time, virtually no headway has been made on the relationship front. Relationships are no better today than they were yesterday, the day before, and even the day before that. In fact relationships are deteriorating. Relationships in the form of marriages are suffering the biggest hit. More than 50% of marriages end in divorce. Why?

In many cases we follow the same dead end roads our predecessors have traveled. We keep doing bad stuff, and doing worse stuff, and doing even worse stuff to each other. The very definition of futility is performing the same task over and over again reaching the same outcome, but always leaving some slim hope that the next time you perform the task the outcome will be different. In order to progress we must break the circle of futility and explore new and uncharted territory, documenting our progress to expedite the travel of those that are destined to follow.

Why can’t we be different? What is stopping us? All due respect, but the answer is laziness. People are so lazy; we don’t want to do the work. We ask advice of people way too much. Why? God gave us a brain at birth, but we don’t trust it. We trust everyone else’s brain, but not our own. We know our experiences, our sensibilities, our emotion, and yet we trust relative strangers to make decision for us.

We value everyone’s opinion. We seek answers in books, we search the net, we watch TV, we read magazines, and we seek therapy, all to get comfortable with our own thoughts. It’s as if we need a co-signor on everyone. We don’t trust ourselves to make a decision, so we take straw polls. We check to see which way the wind is blowing before we make a decision about anything. We ask our best friend, who is as much in the dark as we are, for their opinion. Why do we do this? We’re not comfortable with our own thoughts.


We avoid thinking for ourselves. We stores content from all the places I mentioned above and just regurgitate it when the situation warrants. We are incapable of having an original idea because we suffocate our thoughts before they become ideas. As soon as they start to creep outside of the box, we kill them. At some point, in order for us to grow, we have to create a boundary between society and ourselves. I’m not suggesting that we all create a land of make believe in our minds. That would be ridiculous. What I am suggesting however, is that we create a buffer; a small mechanism that keeps thoughts and opinions from becoming ours until we have contemplated them long enough to formulate an opinion.

Anytime I see a lot of people going in the same directions I get nervous. My natural instinct at that point is to go in the other directions as quickly possible. Going with the crowd requires no thought. All you have to do is just line up right behind the person that is in front of you. Doesn’t require anything more than that. We learned how to line up behind people in pre-K. So performing a task that 4 years olds have mastered doesn't make us special.

Extraordinary people look at situations and see how they can be made better. They march to the beat of a different drummer. Ever wonder who the drummer is? It’s you. Everyone has their own personal rhythm, and when you allow some other person to create rhythm in your head you are doing yourself and the world a huge disservice. You’re taking what you were born with and handing it over to someone else. I don’t think we were given a brain to just memorize what other people think. Our brain is uniquely ours we cheat ourselves when we don’t use it.

Have you ever noticed that our most precious natural resources are under-ground? For some reason God chose to put really valuable things in a place that we had to work to get to. Interesting huh? Why do you think He did that? Wouldn’t it make more sense to put things we really need in a place that would be easily accessible? Gold and oil are our most precious resources and we have to dig deep in the earth to find them. It’s that age- old proverb; if we have to work for something we’ll appreciate, and value it more. In this regard we can learn a great lesson from nature. The precious things are under the surface, and surely not in that stupid box.

I hate that Lebron James doesn't have serial killer DNA

Let me start by saying that the title of this Hate Diary Log is misleading. It should really be “I hate that I got overwhelmed by the hoopla over “The Decision” last summer and thought that the Miami Heat would cruise to an NBA championship in June 2011.”

That title is way too long and too introspective, so we’ll just say bygones and get to the crux of the matter.

Last night I watched the New York Knicks, a team basically 5 days old, (a baby, a zygote, an embryo) beat the Miami Heat on their home floor in a critical game. The game was critical to the Heat because in order for them to have any chance of representing the Eastern Conference, in this years NBA Finals, they must secure the #1 Seed in the East.

As currently constructed they can’t beat both the Bulls, and the Celtics in succession; they need them to beat the hell out of other and hope the winner doesn’t have enough left to put up a substantial fight. The Heat were already trailing Boston in the standings, and only 1 game up in the loss column on Chicago. They needed this game!

The Heat had no excuse, they had motivation, they had a formidable opponent, they were rested, and most importantly Spike Lee was in the house. As a basketball player, if you can’t get up for playing in front of Mars Blackmon then whom can you get up for?

This was a statement game and the Heat made a profound statement… They aren’t ready. They are flawed. Their best playing is a playground baller, with all the talent in the world but can’t seem to summons it in crunch time.

Lebron James’ game is best suited for the Rucker, and not for the Association.

I was mistaken to think that adding him to a team with two all-stars would suddenly change that. Last night in a critical situation down in the fourth quarter the Heat ran a 1-4 isolation with Lebron at the top of the key. Hummm where have I seen that before? Oh I remember, at the end of every playoff game the Cavaliers played over the last 6 years.

Bill Simmons, the best and most astute basketball writer in the country penned a fantastic article at the start of the season about how Lebron was a better player than Dwyane Wade and how that for them to coexist DWade must embrace his inner Scottie Pippen. I’m not doing the article justice; here the link please read it for yourself.

Sidebar

You need 20 minutes to read this. Simmons loves to write and his columns are magical. Magical is another word for wordy. Is wordy a word? The man wrote the Basketball bible a couple years ago and when I say bible I mean that it was both epic and over 700 pages.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/10129&sportCat=nba

I, for the most part, agree with Simmons saving this one caveat, Dwyane Wade is a better clutch player than Lebron James. He’s proven it. He’s was the Finals MVP in 2006 and single handedly won Miami its first championship.

If you asked me three years ago who I wanted in a big game my quote was “give me Lebron for the first 3 quarters, give me DWade in the first 10 minutes of the 4 quarters, and give me Kobe in the final 2 minutes.” 3 years later and my position hasn’t changed.

A player is either clutch or he’s not. Period. A clutch player needs the responsibility of having it all riding on his shoulder at the critical juncture of the game. A clutch player has the unique ability to clear the mechanism, and get to the place on the floor where they know they can produce.

Examine Lebron’s game. Where is his sweet spot on the floor? All the great ones have a spot on the floor where they do the majority of their business. Lebron is a freakish athlete that can physically dominate in non-crunch time. But when the opposition is strong willed and refuses to bend to his will, giving him the lanes to the basket, he then becomes a fraction of himself. When all the chips are on the line, teams aren’t going to give you anything; you have to earn everything.

An interesting aside, I was watching TNT on NBA All-Star weekend and tuned into a show about the greatest All Star in NBA history. The show was basically a fantasy draft of all stars. How would you build your team? Charles Barkley was one of the panelists, in fact he had the first overall pick. With the entire list at his disposal, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, he chose Allen Iverson. ALLEN IVERSON!

Allen “Ball Hog” Iverson
Allen “I never won anything meaningful” Iverson
Allen “Play ground king” Iverson
Allen “Practice, we talking about Practice” Iverson

Are you kidding me?

At first I thought he was goofing around, and then he let it slip that he didn’t understand the rules of the game. He screwed the whole draft up for me, but I thought about it further, and concluded he wasn’t prepared. He agonized over every subsequent pick, taking them all down to the last second before deciding. He was cracking under pressure. I find there no coincidence that he was never considered a clutch player during his career although he is considered an all-timer by many.

On that same show the biggest choker in NCAA and NBA history Chris Webber graced the panel. He too had difficulty making his picks. He was sweating every choice and seemed uneasy during the entire broadcast. No coincidence here. Webber was the most gifted big man in the 90’s but he called the ill-fated time out in the National Championship game that the Wolverines didn’t have, and he came up small in every playoff series he ever played in. In contrast Steve Kerr, who was a journeymen player in the league, was organized. He was cool under pressure. He drafted the best team, and never ran out of time with his picks. No coincidence that he is considered a clutch shooter and won many games in the playoff for his teams.

I mentioned those items to say that some people although great just can’t handle the added pressure of being great in the clutch. They don’t have the ability to clear the mechanism and go to work. The only chance the Heat have of winning a championship this year is to let Lebron dominate in the first 3 quarters and then let DWade embrace his inner Michael Jordan in crunch time.

I hate that Cancer still exists

Here recently I’ve been asked to participate in several fundraisers that assist with research for “rare cancers”. Hadn’t really heard the term much until this year, and I can’t get it out of my head. The term sits odd with me. The more I hear it the more uneasy I feel. So I did a little research and then felt like opening my mind and sharing my thoughts. Hopefully I’ll feel better when done.

The first case of cancer was believed to have been diagnosed in Egypt around 1500 BC, so that’s approximately 3500 years ago. To my knowledge we have yet to find cures for “common cancers” in those 35 centuries.

Yes we have medicine, and radiation, chemicals to slow the disease down but no pill or vaccine that thwarts it.

Our world has grown so much in 3500 years. Hell, I’m 38, and the world has flipped twice since 1972. In my lifetime, mankind has reached the heavens, put computers in our pockets, and the Internet at our fingertips. Technology has exploded, and we still have no real cure for cancer. Cancer affects all of us. We all have lost someone to it. Yet and still we have no real cure.

I see slogans racing for the cure, I see ribbons on lapels, and I see drives, and fundraisers, but still no cures. I’m starting to believe that Chris Rock was right when he said there will never be cures for these things that ail so many because “the money ain’t in the cure, it’s in the medicine”.

I’m a capitalist by nature, but maybe we need to take another look at how we’re approaching this thing. One would think that resources would only go to “rare cancers” after “common cancers” have been cured. Maybe we need less autonomy and a more autocratic approach to this.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) was established in 1937. Their budget last year alone was 5 Billion Dollars. The monies are basically spread over 10 different cancers in order of “commonness”; skin, lung, prostate, breast, colorectal (combination of colon, and rectal), bladder, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney, leukemia, and pancreatic.

Why don’t we make this thing a real race for the cure, and try to cure one of these before 2015? Why can’t we lock the 100 best cancer scientists in a facility until they come up with a vaccine for one of these cancers? Would this be too much like socialism? Would this threaten our civil liberties? Could our democracy handle it? I think so.

Okay, so which cancer should we cure? Skin is very preventable so scratch that one. 90% of lung cancer diagnoses come from smoking, sorry you did it to yourself, scratch that one. Prostate and Breast are about even, and are predominately gender specific so let’s pick on of those.

Why can’t we concentrate our resources, and systematically eliminate prostate and breast cancer from the world? Maybe if we can get one domino to fall the others won’t be very far behind.

I hate when people count other peoples money

Its that time of the year again when Wall Street companies will get flogged and raked over the coals for the bonuses they are paying to their highly specialized employees. Tis the season for the growing sect of angry populists to stand up and be counted.

The angry people will ask questions like: Why is the company paying that size bonus? They ask the question already knowing the answer because they’ve lived in a capitalist society their entire lives. They also know that the person working at McDonalds doesn’t deserve to make $9 an hour either.

The real question is does anyone deserve what he/she makes? If those same angry people went to an impoverished country and told a poor man that they make 90K for picking up trash those poor peasant would think that 90K for picking up trash is outlandish, and they would offer to do it for pennies on the dollar.

Our economy is based on supply and demand.

When you get a Christmas bonus based only on that fact that a child was born in a manger; is that fair? Do you deserve it?

Then the angry people will say; are these the same companies that borrowed money from TARP just three years ago? Yes, these companies did need a loan to survive in 2008. Just like we all need loans to buy homes, and cars, and boats, and education. The populist’s act as if borrowing was created only for these Wall Street companies, when in fact borrowing is the life-blood of our economy. The TARP funds are basically set up as a 5- year loan. The interest rate goes up in 2013. Over 60% of the TARP funds have been paid back with interest and I can say with some assurance that 90% will be paid back when the interest rate on the loans increase two summers from now.

Risk has a price.

These specialists have produced great wealth for our country, and as soon as we see a few negative statements in our 401K, we’re ready to lynch the people that are working for our future. Look. The only way you and I can retire and live a good life afterwards is if the money we earn makes more money. Money has to make money while we’re sleeping, while we’re eating, for us to have enough in the late stages of life.

It takes a special person to sit in an office and look at money, and move it around so that multiplies. They can’t see faces when they are doing their business, they can’t think about loss, or anger, or judgment. These people are part mathematician, part lawyer, part soothsayer, part gambler, and part psychopath.

Rare talents must be appreciated.

So before you go off the handle and start bashing the companies for paying the bonuses, and the employees for accepting the money think about it. Do you want to retire? Do you want to live well in your advanced age? If so, get your hands out of these guys’ pockets and let them do what they do!

I hate modern cell phone etiquette

Tell me if this has ever happened to you. You pick up the phone and dial someone. The phone rings a few times. You’re prepared to leave a message. The person you called answers. You start your typical greeting and then the person says.

“Hey I’m really busy, can I call you back later?”

You say, “Okay” and then the call is terminated.

Don’t you usually feel a little weird afterward? The weirdness normally subsides within seconds because you’re so use to the behavior. It happens all the time now. You’re immune to it. You probably don’t even know why you feel weird in the first place.

If you’re over 30 years of age this behavior is weird because you remember a time when phones weren’t attached to people. You remember the phones being in centralized areas of your home.

What you DON’T remember is someone ever answering the phone and then telling the person on the other end “Hey, I’m really busy, can I call you back later?” You know why you never heard it, because it’s a stupid asinine thing to do.

Back then when you were too busy to talk you chose to NOT ANSWER THE PHONE. It makes very little sense to answer when you can’t talk. If you don’t have much time, why deplete it by answering the phone at all? Why would you cut into your already hectic schedule to pick up a phone that you’re not going to use?

If you ever get intellectually curious and ask someone why he/she does it, they’ll say, “I just wanted to let you know I couldn’t talk.” They don’t realize that I get the same clue if they don’t answer the phone at all. In fact that’s the first thing that goes through my mind when the phone goes to voice mail. Then being courteous I actually consider the importance of my query even before leaving a message. Will it be worth their time to check this message? Can I get the information I need from another resource?

Also when you just don’t answer I can say to myself. The phone isn’t nearby, you couldn’t get to it before it went to VM, or you’re working on some top-secret plan to end war, poverty, and human strife, as we know it.

When you pick up the phone I actually think to myself that you do have time to talk, and then when you tell me otherwise I get confused. Then on top of that I get to hear you tell me that the thing you’re in the middle of right now, is more important than talking to me but not important enough to ignore your phone.

So you answering the phone when you can’t talk, is not comforting at all, it’s actually a bit troubling.

Let’s break this down a little further shall we. Say I’m calling you. I have basically two objectives:

1) To speak/connect with you
2) To leave you a message if I can’t speak to you

You answering the phone deny me of both objectives. When you do this I actually get nothing out of the transaction, and remember I was the one that initiated contact: not you. Shouldn’t I be able to get something out of it? I would think so!

And if the phone ringing is annoying you just send me straight to VM. I’m a big boy, I can handle it! No secure person will get upset if the phone rings once and then gets jettisoned to VM. In fact I appreciate you more for not having me sit through the pointless 3-4 additional rings before VM is queued up.

The only time this behavior makes any sense is if you and I have set up a pre-determined time to chat, a phone date if you will. A mutually specified time to converse, and you answer the phone because you had to change the time of our conversation, due to your schedule being pre-empted.

Think about it. Stop doing it.

I hate people who have the audacity to think that they can actually tempt fate

Leave it up to human beings to think that they have the ability to change destiny by speaking something into existence. It’s 2011 and people are still doing stupid crap. We are well into the 21st century, and humanity still has to deal with this nonsense.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in positive affirmations, and visualization techniques. It’s paramount that people have a vision for themselves especially because success is created in the brain before it can be born into the world. Having said that; let me give you an example of what I’m talking about with the speaking it stuff.

Some of us have been blessed/cursed with dark senses of humor. From time to time, we’ll say something out of the box to move a person out of their comfortable happy place. Usually we’ll take something cherished like children or old people and say something “insensitive” about them. Or we’ll say something about ourselves in a derogatory way, and someone will say, “You shouldn’t say that. You don’t want to put that type of stuff out in the air.”

Like the chemistry of my breath joining with this magical air is going to make my words come into fruition.

I don’t have that kind of power. Wish I did though because I would say things like.

20 Million, in my bank account, NOW…

Halle Berry, teddy, bedroom, NOW…

Cancer, cured, NOW…

Dallas Cowboys, Superbowl, NOW….

Take this a step further. People still feel like if they don’t say certain things bad things will happen.

Recently a friend informed me that his wife was pregnant. He was overjoyed at the news, and I was happy that he was happy so I congratulated him.

My friend’s a good dude. He just got married; his wife has a 7-year old daughter that he adores, and raises as his own. One of the things that I admire about him is his straight-forwardness and honesty. He’s a huge proponent of keeping it real.

He knew I had taken an interest in the pregnancy so he’d give me updates. A few weeks ago he told me that they were going in for the ultrasound/sonogram, and that they’d be made aware of the gender of the baby.

So of course I asked the obligatory question, but before I asked it, I paused, and thought inwardly, would this time be different? Would this honest, straightforward person give me a real answer or would he just regurgitate what so many mindless robots have vomited from the beginning of time. After calculating these 9 variables….

Already has a girl
Another girl would make the house 3-1 girls
A boy would complete the set
He’s a dude, why wouldn’t he want a boy to pass things down to?
A boy will carry the family name
Boys are easier to raise
Couple is advanced in age and probably won’t attempt having another child
Friend’s honesty
Friend's straight-forwardness

I felt comfortable that I was going to get a real answer. So I proceeded to ask the question; exactly like this…. “Hey friend of course the health of the baby is paramount, that being said, do you have a preference? Boy or girl?

Sidebar….

There are only four logical answers to this question, and one of them never gets thought of. I would have accepted any one of the four.

Yes, I prefer a girl.
Yes, I prefer a boy.
I have no preference.
My personal favorite, No, I want a hermaphrodite. That’s it. Only those four!

I didn’t have to wait long for his response. He said, “I just want a healthy baby.”

OK HERE WE GO!

The ignorance train just pulled into the station. Why do people say this? Of course you want a healthy baby. Who doesn’t? If given the choice healthy or unhealthy, an ape would choose healthy. Come on! Do you really think that saying this is going to somehow insure a healthy baby? 8 million children are born each year with a serious birth defect. You think those 16 million parents were hoping for an unhealthy baby or forgot to say aloud that they were hoping for a healthy baby.

I’m not asking about your baby’s health. It’s understood that we all want your baby to be healthy. My last name is not Dahmer, Kraczyski, Gacy, Manson, or Berkowitz.

You giving me the “I just want a healthy baby” to my question is the equivalent of me asking you do you prefer the black car or the red one? And you answer, “I just want a car that not going to run off the side of the road and kill me.”

This is worse than superstition. At least the superstitious know that their quirks are weird and outside of the norm. But these people, who insist on saying this, really do humanity a disservice because they believe that this is proper and normal behavior.

I beg you. Please stop saying this.

Sidebar…

I don’t have children, and if I’m ever blessed to have them I’m sure I’ll say something dumb like this, but believe me I’ll hate myself for it.